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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted at 8:02 a.m., Thursday, January 8, 2009

Martin Denny on National Public Radio

Wanda Adams

If you happened to be listening to Hawaii Public Radio this morning, you'd have heard a sound familiar to any Islander: the music of the late "father of exotica," the late Martin Denny.

National Public Radio plays short musical interludes between each of its reports and the music is generally keyed to the topic of the previous story. In this case, they had just completed a report on a man who records animal sounds in remote Australia — specifically, the sounds of the country's many frog species performing their dramatic mating calls.

Following the report, there came the familiar "caw! caw! caw!" of Denny's best-known composition, "Quiet Village." The kicker: The sound of frogs, as well as of birds, was pat of the inspiration for that song.